I think you need to define "just about everyone". Outside of the U.S. and Britain, hardly anybody bought it.

For myself, I have always had a lot of respect for Powell, but in that instance, I thought he was being conned by his own administration. If later ramblings by various CIA sources are to be believed, Powell believed what he was told by the CIA, but they didn't necessarily believe it themselves, as their analysis was somewhat 'directed'.

>I still don't see how that is germain to the issue. At the time, the administration presented an argument and just about everyone bought it. Later we found out that the evidence and intelligence didn't support that argument - as the report released in 2004 states. That was not not known by everyone before then or did you have information available to you that we here in the U.S. did not at that time? You didn't believe Colin Powell or you didn't think Colin Powell believed his own words at the time he spoke them?
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>>The senate report is based on the evidence that was available then. Not new evidence.
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>>>But that was my point. I stated at the time. The report you cite was not released until July 2004. Everyone sees it differently given the information we now have.
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>>>>>Granted, before the Iraq war intelligence information presented an almost overwhelming necessity for our intervention there
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>>>>I disagree. The administration presented intelligence that made it seem necessary, but the Senate Committee on Pre-war intelligence has shown that the intelligence didn't support what the administration was claiming.
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>>>>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Report_of_Pre-war_Intelligence_on_Iraq#The_report.27s_conclusions